Bill Shorten (Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

We give thanks for Malcolm Fraser's six decades of service to our nation as a parliamentarian, Prime Minister and statesman. We farewell a person of hidden depths and many parts, a man often misunderstood. For some, Malcolm Fraser was a hero who became a villain. For others, he was a villain who became a hero. But neither of these simple sketches are fair, and, in time, history's judgement will be kinder than either.

The good that Malcolm Fraser did will live after him, to his great and enduring credit. Malcolm Fraser came to public life as a man in a hurry. He was a candidate for parliament at 24, the member for Wannon by 25, a minister at 35 and Prime Minister at 45. His appetite for hard work, his formidable intellect and his healthy ambition drove this rapid rise, but Malcolm Fraser was always more than the sum of his aspirations. He was broader and bigger than his opponents imagined possible, and he was both shyer and smarter than people appreciated. Beyond the stern visage and the Easter Island jaw, beloved of cartoonists, beat the heart of a humanitarian. His concern for the welfare of the vulnerable and his belief in the equal treatment of all won Malcolm Fraser many new admirers in the long third act of his public life. Yet, as both Bob Hawke Paul Keating remarked in their warm tributes last week, Fraser's belief in racial equality was a lifelong article of faith. It was a golden thread of integrity. It began in the lonely days of his childhood in the Riverina, where his closest friend was a young Aboriginal girl, an experience that had not left him when as minister for education he would ease that great patrician frame of his into the red dirt of the territory to sit with community elders. It is a memory that abided when, as Prime Minister, he passed the Whitlam land rights act and the Racial Discrimination Act and kept faith with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. And indeed as an elder statesman, resplendent in pinstriped suit and waistcoat, he continued to champion the cause of reconciliation.

But Fraser's commitment to human rights ran deeper even than this. As Prime Minister, he led Australia's independent condemnation of the evil of apartheid. He took a principled stand, declaring that South Africa's regime of racial prejudice was 'repugnant to the whole human race'. And he matched his words with deeds, visiting Mandela in prison, imposing international sanctions and, perhaps most famously in our sport-loving nation, refusing to allow the Springboks' plane to stop here on its way to New Zealand. Later, Fraser delighted in telling the anecdote of Mandela's first question to him at their meeting: 'Mr Fraser, can you tell me, is Don Bradman still alive?' And so, when Mandela became President, Fraser took him a bat inscribed by the Don: 'To Nelson Mandela, in recognition of a great unfinished innings.'

It was Malcolm Fraser who laid the broad foundation of our great, generous, modern multicultural society. He had the wisdom to understand that there was nothing for Australia to fear or lose in embracing people from every culture, faith and tradition. He knew that diversity would enrich our nation and our lives. Under Fraser, Australia offered refuge to tens of thousands of Vietnamese people driven from their homes by the terror of war and dictatorship. Many of these families, who made Australia their second home, have paid touching tribute to Malcolm Fraser as their second father.

Fraser's Australia also quietly moved to the reality beyond White Australia, giving a second chance to people from South Africa shut out of their nation by apartheid. The new nation he built was given voice, music, news and stories by SBS. For some it was a glimpse of another, wider world; for others it was the songs and sound of the home they had left behind. Multicultural Australia will always stand as the tallest monument to the life and legacy of Malcolm Fraser. It is an achievement we celebrate, we enjoy and we give thanks for every day.

Much has been said and written about the central role Fraser played in the dismissal of the Whitlam government. Never before or since have political passions run higher in this nation. Even now, the acrimony and the vitriol showered on each side by the other—the sheer ugliness of those days—leap from the pages of old newspapers and bark at us from old footage. But the passing of the last of the central protagonists of the drama of 1975 is not the time for relitigating old arguments or resuscitating old grievances. As Malcolm's great friend the Hon. Ian Macphee has said, 'Malcolm never spent time regretting the past; he was always looking to the future.'

So let us take our inspiration from Malcolm Fraser and Gough Whitlam. Let us remember Whitlam and Fraser standing together on the steps of the Victorian parliament in 1999, arms aloft, rallying support for the republic, or that wonderful ad created for the yes campaign, where Whitlam looks at Fraser, eyes twinkling, and says, 'Malcolm, it's time,' and Malcolm looks back at Gough, with that same good-humoured glint of irony, and says, 'It is.' Let us remember the second Whitlam Oration was given by Malcolm Fraser, at Gough Whitlam's insistence, with a video introduction by Whitlam. Most fittingly of all, let us remember Whitlam's hand resting on Fraser's shoulder on the morning of the national apology by the Rudd government—two champions of the rights and opportunities of First Australians, standing with their successors, united, celebrating a day of justice and healing. If those two titans could find it in themselves to make peace and to build a friendship, to campaign together for shared beliefs, then none of us have the right to hold onto the bitterness of that bygone era. This chapter in our nation's life is closed.

We will always remember Gough Whitlam for so much more than the way he left office, and we will remember Malcolm Fraser for much more than the way he came to office. This is not to pretend that Malcolm Fraser was not a political opponent of Labor for a major part of his public life, or that he was not antagonistic to many of our policies and principles. He would not want us to minimise our differences or disagreements. But when we look at Malcolm Fraser's life and legacy—the humane treatment of Vietnamese refugees, the promotion of an independent foreign policy for Australia, support for a republic and Australia's active role in the resolution of international situations—there is no disputing that he was involved in the creation of good values. If that is what you leave behind from this place, acting for good in the name of the public good, then that is a truly remarkable contribution.

The passing of a former Prime Minister always gives us pause. Last year, Labor farewelled the author of our modern identity. It was a time of sadness, joy and contemplation—time to revisit the standards that Gough set for us, to ask how far we had come in fulfilling his vision for Australia. So it is with the passing of Malcolm Fraser—a transformed political figure—Gough's fierce foe, who became his firm friend. All of us can ask ourselves in this place if we can do better by each other and the people we serve. Perhaps we can recognise that while we are all people of different beliefs, we share a common faith: we all believe in the value and importance of public life, the noble calling of politics and the greatness of the nation that we love. Let this respect for each other and for our democracy be Malcolm Fraser's final act of public service.

My final words today, however, are for Malcolm's loving wife, Tammy, and their children and grandchildren. I should confess that about a dozen years ago Tammy Fraser told me that it was her grandfather who was the first grazier in the district to employ union shearers in his woolshed. Ever since then I have had something of a soft spot for her. Tammy Fraser once described herself, modestly, as 'just someone in the back row'. But she was so much more than that. She performed the public duties of a prime ministerial spouse with poise, class and verve, and her contribution to our nation continued long after she and Malcolm had left the Lodge. She is in all our hearts today, as are all the members of the Fraser family.

Farewell, Malcolm Fraser. His duty done, may he rest in eternal peace.

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